Hilary Duff 2
Early life and career
Hilary Duff was born in Houston, Texas, the second child of Bob Erhard Duff, owner of a chain of convenience stores, and Susan Colleen Cobb, a homemaker. After Duff's mother encouraged her to take an acting class alongside her older sister, Haylie Katherine Duff, both girls won parts in various local theatre productions. At the age of six, the Duff sisters participated in the ballet The Nutcracker Suite with Columbus Ballet Met in San Antonio. The siblings became more enthusiastic about the idea of acting professionally, and eventually relocated to California with their mother. Bob Erhard Duff stayed at the family home in Houston to maintain their business. After several years of auditions and meetings, the Duff sisters were cast in several television commercials.
Television and film career
Most of Duff's first few acting roles were
small, starting off with an uncredited appearance in Hallmark Entertainment's western miniseries True Women (1997). She also served as an extra, again uncredited, in writer-director Willard Carroll's ensemble dramedy Playing by Heart (1998). Her first major part was as the star of the 1998 film Casper Meets Wendy, playing the young witch, Wendy, who encounters the animated character Casper. Like Casper: A Spirited Beginning (1997), the second sequel to the successful Casper (1995), the film was released direct-to-video with generally unenthusiastic reviews.
Duff later appeared in a supporting role in the television film The Soul Collector (1999), which was based on a Kathleen Kane novel and starred Bruce Greenwood as an angel who helps out a female farmer (Melissa Gilbert) whose husband has recently died. Duff ended up winning a Young Artist Award for "Best Performance in a TV Movie or Pilot (Supporting Young Actress)".
Duff's first serious shot at fame came when she was cast as one of the children in the pilot episode of the NBC sitcom Daddio (2000). Actor Michael Chiklis, co-star of Daddio stated, "After working with her the first day, I remember saying to my wife, 'This young girl is going to be a movie star'. She was completely at ease with herself and comfortable in her own skin". Before the show had aired, Duff was dropped from its cast lineup and became reluctant to continue her acting career. Her manager and mother spurred her on, and a week later she successfully auditioned for the family comedy show Lizzie McGuire.
Lizzie McGuire, which first aired on the Disney Channel in January 2001, was a ratings hit, drawing in 2.3 million viewers per episode, and became the career breakthrough Duff had been waiting for. Her participation in the show led to her becoming highly popular among children between the ages of seven and fourteen, with critic Richard Huff of the New York Daily News calling her "a 2002 version of Annette Funicello". After Duff fulfilled her entire sixty-five episode contract with Lizzie McGuire, Disney toyed with the idea of continuing the franchise in further films and a prime-time television series to be broadcast on ABC, but the plans deteriorated. A successful feature film spin-off, The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), was produced.
Duff's first role in a theatrical motion picture was in Human Nature (2002), an independent film shot before Lizzie McGuire and first shown at the Cannes and Sundance film festivals. Written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry, the film follows a female naturalist, played by Patricia Arquette. Duff played the younger version of Arquette's character.
Duff subsequently starred opposite Christy Carlson Romano and Gary Cole in the Disney Channel television film Cadet Kelly (2002), which became the network's most watched program in its nineteen-year history. Her first major role in a feature film was in Agent Cody Banks with Frankie Muniz in 2003. The film was successful enough to spawn a sequel, in which Duff did not participate. Later that year Duff played one of the twelve children of Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt in the family film Cheaper by the Dozen, which remains her highest grossing film. She reprised her role in the sequel, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005), which failed to repeat the financial success of the original film and was panned by critics.
In 2004 Duff starred in the romantic comedy A Cinderella Story, an update of Charles Perrault's fairy tale Cinderella. The film became a moderate box office hit, and though reviews were mostly negative, some critics were impressed by Duff's performance and her chemistry with co-star Chad Michael Murray. A Cinderella Story earned a total of $66,068,046 worldwide and was a commercial success. Later that year she starred in the film Raise Your Voice. Some critics praised Duff for appearing in a more dramatic role than previously, but the film was heavily panned, with the Las Vegas Weekly writing: "Effortlessly combining Duff's bad acting and bad singing with bad writing and bad direction, Raise Your Voice is an insulting waste of time that begs to be silenced". Reviews were, by and large, negative to Duff's vocals (several critics pointed out what appears to be her digitally enhanced voice ) and indifferent towards her acting performance. Duff received a Razzie Award nomination for "Worst Actress" (in addition to her work in A Cinderella Story). The film received a muted reception at the box office, where it became Duff's least commercially successful film at the time.
In The Perfect Man (2005) she played the oldest daughter of a divorced woman that was played by Heather Locklear, who later moves to New York City as she desperately searches for a man to settle down with. Reviews mostly negative, and the film disappointed at the box office, grossing a mere $16,535,005. That year, Duff was again nominated for a Razzie Award, for both The Perfect Man and Cheaper by the Dozen 2. The 2006 satirical comedy Material Girls was her least commercially successful film to date, earning $11,449,638; the Martha Coolidge-directed film, co-produced by Madonna's independent film production company Maverick Entertainment, starred Duff and her real-life sister Haylie Duff as wealthy siblings who must fight to reclaim their fortune following a scandal.
The Duff sisters are due to lend their voices to the computer animated comedy Foodfight!, which Lions Gate Films is to distribute in 2007. The film's director, Larry Kasanoff, said that he is "absolutely thrilled to have the Duff sisters as part of the cast." Duff is currently slated to star opposite John Cusack in Brand Hauser, due for release in late 2007. The film is set in a futuristic country and Duff and Cusack are currently filiming it in Bulgaria. Duff proved her commitment by pushing back her much anticipated fifth studio album so that she had ample time to work on the movie.